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When he’s within arm’s reach, he lunges and I pivot. The air rushes past me as his fist misses my face by inches. I counter his punch with a strike of my own, thrusting the base of my palm into his throat.

He coughs, choking on his own breath. “Lucky shot!”

He rushes at me again, moving on emotion like he had during the Gyeol-sa fight to the death. I’m anticipating this as I duck his flying fists and retaliate with a kick to his gut. Then an uppercut to his chin. He’s knocked half off his feet this time, the loud thud of his boots telling me exactly where he is.

“Damn you!” he yells.

He launches yet another attack. I respond by keeping calm, focusing on where I sense his next move coming from. As he throws out a combination of jabs and kicks, I’m fending them off with swift motions of my arms and legs. He goes for a kick to my side that I catch with my leg, our shins colliding.

Then I push off my right foot and leap into the air, twisting both legs around his torso. I wrap him in a scissor and then rip him off his feet and toss him to the ground. It’s a Muay Thai maneuver I learned many years ago.

Seung-min’s dizzy hitting the ground. He never sensed what was headed his way. He scrambles to his feet huffing enraged breaths and snarling, “You blind bastard. C’mere!”

As he rushes toward me, I shift out of the way at the last possible second. He circles and tries again, throwing out more brutish strikes. I duck and sweep wide. My arm collides with his ribs before I grab his shoulder and pop the bone from its socket, dislocating it.

“UGH!” he grunts loudly.

I drive my knee into his stomach and then flip him onto the ground. The heel of my foot careens into his battered jaw and I hear anothercrunch.

I’ve dislodged it more than it already was after the Gyeol-sa. Seung-min’s screaming from where he’s collapsed on the ground. It takes all the might he has left to wobble back onto his feet.

I don’t need 20/20 vision to tell me he’s broken down. He’s huffing air, staggering with sloppy movements, probably dripping blood.

A few more hits and it’s over.

We revert back to how the fight began, rotating around each other in a wider circle. Two animals with the bloodlust urge to kill the other.

I’m still tapped into my senses, eyes closed. The agony I’d felt has been muted. I’m calm, ready for what Seung-min will bring my way.

Except for his latest ploy to cheat to victory—instead of lunging at me, he lunges off to my right.

Monroe.

She screams as he charges toward her. I can tell she’s caught off guard, likely reeling from their earlier tussle while I was on the floor.

I race to beat him, using instinct to drive me and tell me where I am in the room, and where they are. “MONROE, LEFT!”

My rabbit understands instantly what I’m asking of her. She scrambles out of the way as I jump into the air, pushing off the edge of Jae-hyun’s desk with the ball of my foot. It springs me forward, giving the momentum I need as my leg extends out and I deliver a spinning roundhouse kick to Seung-min.

The blow packs enough power that he’s knocked off his feet. He’s thrown backward against the large glass window overlooking the street outside. That Jae-hyun often stood by as he sipped his soju and watched his pornographic films.

The room fills with the deafening crack of shattering glass.

Seung-min screams as he’s flung through the window and lands three stories below on what sounds like the hood of a car.

I rush to the broken window at the same time Monroe does. The two of us come up side by side from opposite ends of the room. Though I’m unable to see what I’m looking at down below, I can tell by the gasps from bystanders on the street that it’s gruesome.

“Dead?” I ask.

Monroe nods from my side. “He landed right on the hood of a taxicab and smashed through the windshield. It looks like there’s a piece of glass lodged into the back of his head.”

I slip my arm around her waist, breathing raggedly. “Good.”

26.Monroe

Dawn lightensthe sky by the time Jin and I return to his family home.

We limp toward the front path together, battered and bone-tired. Jin’s arm is slung over my shoulders. I’m tucked against his side, helping him walk as best as I can. He’s fresh from Dr. Baek’s hands—patched, stitched, bandaged—but the exhaustion has dropped in and weighed us both to the ground.